Morning. Good morning. I'm going to talk about Sojin. I met him in probably April of 1988. I started at Green Gulch with a retreat there, weekend retreat, and found there was a Berkley's End Center, but I used to sit just the first 40 minutes. Those of you who only know the Zoom schedule, it used to be that you sat for an hour, but after 40 minutes there was a clunk on the big bell, and you could change position or you could leave if you needed to, and I didn't need to, so I left. So I had no idea what was going on behind my back. There's just various bells and things, and I never stayed for service for the first few months, and I always wore a particular green cotton sweater, sort of

[01:10]

my uniform, I guess, and what I knew was that Sojin came into the Zindo, and I had some sense, I guess, that he walked around, and I learned to put my hands in gassho as he passed, and then he left, and I knew that he was co-abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center, so what I thought was that he opened our Zindo, and then he jumped in his car and drove across the bridge and opened San Francisco Zen Center. I had no idea where he went, but he went to Doosan, I know now, but I thought I had this great image of him with a little beret on, with a scarf around his neck, you know, like Snoopy looks like when he's in a car, you know, rushing across the bay. That was my first impression, and then I finally met him when

[02:10]

he gave a talk at Green Gulch. I used to go there on Sundays, and so after the lecture, there'd be a break and tea and stuff, and then reconvening in the Wheelwright Center for question and answer discussion, and so I introduced myself. He said he recognized the sweater, and so that was the first time I met him. I started going to a drop-in group on, I don't know, I think it was on Monday nights then, I don't remember, but at any rate, it was led by Maile, and so I got to know Maile Scott, and she became what I would call my practice leader, and that group became kind of my sangha, because since I left after 40 minutes,

[03:21]

I didn't really know mourning people that much, and I only knew, let's see, it was Rondi and Charlie, and I don't remember exactly, maybe a couple of other people. We all arrived at about the same time and parked on Novia and walked in together, so that was my sangha at that point, and Maile was a wonderful mentor and great introduction to practice, and encouraged me to have a relationship with Sojin, and so I started seeing him. I also was confused. There was a sign, I don't know if it's still there, but there was a sign about Dosan and how to sign up for it, and it referred to him as Maile, and then it referred to him a sentence later as Sojin, so I didn't know that was one person. I thought maybe it was two people,

[04:23]

but finally I got up the nerve and I went to see him, and then we started talking, and eventually he became my teacher. I don't remember exactly. At some point, that would have been like in the fall of 88 or something, and my parents died in the... my mother in January and my father in May of 89, so their decline and deaths became very much my practice, and it was very helpful.

[05:33]

I hadn't meant to talk about my relationship with him so much. I miss him a lot, and I'm near tears now. What I wanted to talk about was, I did this during the 49 days after he died here in Vallejo. I talked about things that were close to him and his teaching, including the Bendo Wa, which is Kiju Sanmai. There are lots of translations of it. Self-enjoyment samadhi, self-fulfilling samadhi, I'm going to say self-realizing samadhi, self-actualizing samadhi.

[06:44]

I think I'm going to do that, and then if you want to know more about my relationship with him or my history or something, I'm quite willing to talk about it, but I feel like on various forums since he died, I've been talking about him and my relationship with him, either with him, to him, or with various groups, including BZC, and I feel like I've said what I need to say about him. So, he loved that teaching of Kiju Sanmai. I have been regularly around BCC for a long time, probably since the early 2000s, and I started to come back when he was

[07:54]

ill, and I was going in the afternoons. It was wonderful to bow out with him. It was precious, and then everything shut down. But I assume, I think it's probably a fair assumption, that he continued to talk about GJU. After all, it's about Zazen. When I started this place, he told me, just talk about Zazen. It's all I ever talked about. Talk about Zazen. So, I do. So, you're probably familiar with this. The first paragraph, Bendo Wa, Okamura and Taigen Dan Layton, which some of you may know,

[09:00]

whom some of you may know, call it Bendo Wa. They translate it as a talk on wholehearted practice of the way. Wholehearted. All Buddha Tathagatas together have been simply transmitting wondrous dharma and actualizing anyutara samyak sambhogi, incomparable awareness, is how they translate, incomparable awareness, for which there is an unsurpassable unfabricated wondrous method. This wondrous method, this wondrous dharma, which has been transmitted only from Buddha to Buddha without deviation, has as its criterion GJU Zanmai. Which can be the samadhi of self-receiving or accepting its function, or samadhi of self-enjoyment or self-fulfillment. Self-fulfillment. So,

[10:07]

what is that? Because we're always talking about no-self. And Sojin used to say, you need an ego in order to manage your life. But it doesn't, now this is the way I talk about it now, and I don't remember if he actually said this part, but he may very well have, anyway, that it doesn't, it should not be, it doesn't need to be this big beach ball in front of you. It needs to be a little cantaloupe or a softball over here. And what we usually do is we put it right in the middle. And we call that our small, small-s self. And we cause ourselves and others no end of trouble because of having this big event right in front of us. Protecting us, maybe. I just am reminded of an experience I had

[11:18]

at Tassajara a long time ago. I just had this image, you know, these things that start, it wasn't with words, it was just like, I don't know, maybe a movie or something, but just those things are just, it's like an insight that's physical. Anyway, it was that I had, that I was carrying around a bag of shit. Maybe another name for the beach ball. And I didn't want to put it down. And I was carrying it right here, protecting my Hara, my solar plexus, my gut. And I realized, I saw that I didn't want to put it down because it was warm. It was protecting me from who knows what. And it was mine. And that even though it smelled and it was heavy, I wanted it. I thought

[12:32]

I needed it. And I don't know that I put it down in that experience, but I had a really clear, a real physical sense of wanting to protect myself. And I think the self that we're talking about in Jiju Songhai is not that big capital S self that we talk about sometimes, which is the universal self, all being, thus, it, whatever, the absolute self, which encompasses all. I think that it's, it's talking here about the small S self. And maybe I rarely say but, but maybe it is

[13:37]

but the small self self, but just this one over here, just the little candle. What would it be like if you put down your bag of shit? Or if you, you know, deflate the beach ball? That might be fun. You know, it's got, it's got a little valve in it and you open that up and it might fly like a balloon flies. I don't know. Just to let that go. What would it be like if you stopped crying so hard to protect, defend yourself? What if you wholeheartedly and wholesomely, simply allowed yourself to express itself without anything extra? One of the important distinctions he taught me

[14:42]

was that we tend to use the word vulnerable, and I feel vulnerable. And that the effort is to be open. In other words, when you feel vulnerable, it's like you're vulnerable to an attack or something. Something is, something is after you and you're vulnerable to getting hurt and when you're open, you're just open. This is the gesture. And what would it be like? What would it be like? A useful question. What would it be like to just be open? To simply respond? To simply sit zazen and allow the myriad dharmas to come forth

[15:51]

and experience themselves? You still need a little ego. You still need the capacity to dissipate and to experience those dharmas sitting in a, at a small, quiet pool in the forest. And if you go looking for all the deer, you're never going to see them. But if you sit down and are quiet, they will come and drink. And you can experience the deer dharmas as they experience themselves. There's great liberation there. There's great joy there. And I think that is the self, fulfilling the self.

[16:53]

Can you just be one of the people in the universe? We so often feel a need to control it and have it come out the way we want or to avoid what we don't want to have. Here we've been studying the Heart Sutra and I learned, I studied it with Sojin, my first practice spirit at Tassajara. And we used the text from the Tiger's Cave, the long article by Abbot Obora. And he talks about having an empty heart and that when you're not

[18:01]

adding on to it, when you're simply responding, it isn't that you don't have tears if you're sad or laughter. It's that they don't leave a trace. What would it be like? When we're sitting, sometimes there's that experience of just sitting. In other words, there's just breath breathing. It's not I'm breathing or I'm sitting or my knee hurts. There's just breath. There's just knee hurting. I know for me, sometimes when I'm settled, thoughts arise and then it's like a bubble just bursts and the thought doesn't even complete

[19:13]

itself and I don't care. I'm not invested in it. I'm not grabbing it. I'm not trying to push it away. And it's okay. I want to tell you two stories at once. One is about, I'm going to start with the one about the empty heart. When we were studying that, I worked in the kitchen, the first session there, because I'd already sat three, I think. I started in September, so I'd already sat a bunch. And we were very, very, very short-handed. It was a practice period of, I think, about 25 people. So I thought, okay, I'll work in the kitchen. I've heard about it, about working in the kitchen and working the whole session and having a session in the kitchen. And so I'll do that. And I did. And well, it turned out it was just,

[20:16]

they weren't doing a session in the kitchen. They were just taking care of the kitchen. And I was kind of disappointed. And Tenzo was sitting and Fukuten, the assistant, was leading the kitchen. And I don't remember what it was about, but there was some exchange when I was sharp with her. And I felt bad about it. And I spent the next two days working on getting to an empty heart. And it was hard, letting go of wanting to blame her and wanting to justify myself and getting in touch with the ego, which was saying, how dare you insult me, me, me? And being with that, because it hurts. It's also very funny, but it hurts. And I was angry. And I was right. And all that, on and on. And finally, on maybe the last day or second to

[21:27]

the last day, I don't remember, but finally, I got to the point where I could just say, I'm sorry, I was sharp with you. And of course, she didn't even know what I was talking about. I needed to apologize because I didn't like it. And who was right or wrong or whatever was pretty irrelevant. So come Shosan at the end. I don't know if everybody knows. Shosan is at the end of longer of a multi-day Sashin. Each person has the opportunity to ask a Dharma question that's close to their heart of whoever's leading the Sashin. So I figured out a way to ask that didn't identify who the staff had been with or anything. And I just said that I had this issue and I had

[22:27]

worked to get to an empty heart and felt like it cost a lot. That was really hard. And I said, does it get any easier? Because it felt like it costs a lot. And does it get easier? And he said, don't be stingy. I can't hear you laughing. Anyway, so don't be stingy. But this is you use on my self-enjoying samadhi. Once I got there to that empty heart, it was a joyous thing. Once I worked through all the ego unwholesome stuff, I got to wholeheartedness.

[23:30]

I mean, empty heart is wholehearted. And in my old age, I've forgotten the other thing. I was going to the other story, but maybe I'll remember. I'll think of another story. Oh, I didn't. I think I was there for this. And I'm 99.9% sure it happened. At any rate, Soja had lectured. And in the question and answer afterwards, a young man raised his hand and said, I'm relatively new to this. I've only been doing it for a few months. And when I sit Zazen, my mind just drives me crazy. I'm just thinking all the time and thinking and thinking. I think he said, does it get any easier? And Soja said, you know the difference between you and me?

[24:37]

It's just a young man says no. And Soja said, I think too, but it doesn't bother. It doesn't bother me. That's GGU Samadhi. The small mind is there. The self is there thinking thoughts, but they don't bother him. Because he's not grasping after them. He's not swatting them away. They're just doing their thing. And his knees and his back and his breath are doing their thing. And he's simply present. Which I know is easy to say and not so easy to do. Uchiyama talks about it in his commentary to the Bendowa.

[25:38]

Uchiyama Roshi was a Japanese modern Japanese teacher who taught Okamura Roshi. And he wrote a commentary on the Bendowa, which is a book that I was reading. This is a translation of his of the Bendowa, but also Uchiyama's commentary. Wonderful. At any rate, Uchiyama talks about it as he's saying that in a way, it's about knowing that you're deluded and accepting that you're deluded, GGU Samadhi. And stopping, insisting on getting somewhere or getting rid of something. We have a motto which is trying doesn't work.

[26:48]

We are, that's even that small self is deluded. We are deluded. We think the default is I think that I am a permanent solid event. Maybe not permanent, you know, if you ask me if I'm going to die, I'd have to say yes, but that I don't go around thinking about it. But I do. And I think that I, I exist here in this world. And you exist and I can see a few faces on my screen. There's a little strip with one, two, three, four, five, six faces. And I think you're there. And here's a teaching stick. Here's a cup with water in it. That was given to me by a woman named Cone, I think. It's been a long time.

[27:53]

Oh, and I, we're picking and choosing all the time. We're living in this relative deluded world all the time. We have to. Otherwise, you couldn't hear me. So in order to function, we live in a deluded world that, that treats things as permanent and solid. And it really will hurt your toe if you kick a table. So that needs to be okay. You can't, you can't live and function as you and relate to me. You can't do that in the absolute. That's why they call it the hazy room of enlightenment because it has to include

[29:07]

accepting things as it is another sojournism. He, he said the Suzuki Roshi used that phrase and according to Sojin, he was questioned like, do you mean things as they are? And he said, no, things as it is. And Sojin loved that, as you probably know. It's important for Jiju, who is on my, let the self be the self, enjoy it. What would that be like? There's a great joy in wholehearted acceptance of things as it is. There's a great joy in letting go of all the extra. And Sojin is where we practice it and express it.

[30:20]

He once said, maybe more than once, I don't know, he said something, somebody asked him something about Sojin. He said, you know, just sit, like it, don't like it, doesn't matter at all. Just sit. Sometimes we don't like it, so we'll sit anyway. He also said, this is somewhat of an aside, but I think it's useful to remember to every time he said, every time I sit, when I sit down, I give myself Sojin instruction. So, you know, I check if I'm sitting up straight and notice where my chin is. And are my ears in line with my shoulders and my nose in line with my knees? And one thing that really stuck with me over the years is that he said, push up with your breastbone, you know, not out, not like the Marines, just up, up with your breastbone and then your shoulders naturally open and fall over.

[31:28]

That's Jiji Uzanmai, simply wholeheartedly assuming and wholeheartedly letting go of thoughts. And wholeheartedly noticing what's going on in your body when you're irritated or when you don't want to sit, if you're sitting there grumbling. In other words, not pushing it away or not saying to yourself, I shouldn't be enjoying this. They said it's self-enjoyment. Why shouldn't I? Why are you enjoying it? What's wrong with me? I must be doing it wrong. Probably not. Well, you are because you're doing all that extra on top of not wanting. The not wanting to not want, that's the problem. So the next paragraph, I love. I don't remember him talking about this in these terms so much,

[32:50]

but I particularly like this translation. For just sporting oneself freely in this samadhi, Jiji Uzanmai, practicing zazen in upright posture is the key to the state of mind. True gate. Although this dharma is abundantly inherent in each person, it is not manifested without practice. It is not attained without realization. When you let go, the dharma fills your hands. It is not within the boundary of one or many. When you try to speak, it fills your mouth. It is not limited to vertical or horizontal. When you let go, the dharma fills your hands. When you let go, the beach ball deflates. When you try to speak, it fills your mouth.

[33:52]

You could interpret two opposite ways, and I think that's fine. I don't know that I said bendo wise by Dogen, the 13th century founder of our school. Anyway, it fills your mouth. You can think of it as when you speak, the dharma comes forth. You can also think of it as it silences you. I don't know if you've had the experience. I hope you have. Sometimes, especially in Sishin, you just feel there's just silence, and it's hard to talk, and you don't have the impulse to talk. Sometimes people will come for dōsan, and they just have nothing to say.

[35:00]

I was geisha for Norman Fisher at Green Gulch for a while, and he had a practice of when people were sitting there for Sishin, he would call them in. He wouldn't wait for them to sign up. He would just check with them. I would go and get them for him. There was a practice period, and there were maybe six or eight people in that category. They would be in there for like two minutes, and they'd be out, and I'd get another one. During the break, I asked him about it, and he said they didn't want to talk. I think that was pretty nice. That image of when you let go, it fills your hands. You've heard all kinds of variations of

[36:19]

dōsan. You hold the bird too tight, and you kill it. You let it go, and maybe it'll come back. Someone you love, let them go, and then if they come back of their own accord, then you know. There is a great joy in letting go. It's not always easy. I love this phrase for disporting oneself freely in this samadhi. Dōsan is the true gate. Disporting oneself freely. What a wonderful image. I think of dolphins. You never see them. They're sometimes around the Golden Gate or something. You see them from Baker Beach. You can see them in there. They're just swimming and

[37:23]

jumping. That seems to me a wonderful image of disporting freely. When we are not stingy, when we're willing to pay the price of getting to an empty heart, when we're willing to practice this jijū-yū-sanmai, this letting the small self be without inflating it, and also without pummeling it. Don't try to make it into a golf ball. I said, stop trying and stop thinking of my notes. Charlie Ware once gave me a pin, which I still have.

[38:27]

And Mel told me, yeah, please wear it. I used to wear it on the inside of my robe, tasahara. And every so often I come across it and I think I should put that back on. We should all have them. Anyway, the button says, stop thinking and let things happen. And I'm grateful for it. So I think our job, if you choose to accept it, is to make this effort to see clearly as possible where we're holding on, where we're pushing away, where we're adding extra. And to do the homework, if you will, necessary to let go of all the extra. And then this wonderful

[39:33]

lightness, this joy arises. Not the joy necessarily of yippee, or somebody said, my zen key is total joy. I was contrasting it with another kind of joy and somebody said, so yours is the joy of sex and chocolate? I think, yes. But I'm not talking about the joy of sex and chocolate so much as a deeper kind of self-fulfilling. Let go of that longing for an essential self. So I wanted to leave time for discussion or questions or comments or whatever. So thank you.

[40:35]

So, Good Sangha, as you all know, you, the participants, you open up participants at the bottom, our hands and those are already raising. So I will call on people and I ask that you ask a question, a direct question. So first, Ellen Webb, I invite you to unmute yourself and ask a question. Hi, Mary. Hi. Thank you for your talk and thank you for being with us today. It's nice to have you here. And I appreciated your talk. And I just stumbled over one thing you said or one word you used, which is a word I often stumble over, actually. And it was when you were talking about your sort of harsh words in the Tassajara kitchen. And then you talked about

[41:54]

having to work on getting to an open heart. And you use the word work a couple of times. And I always sort of stumble over that word. Like if what we're doing is letting go or not trying, you know, working seems, I don't know, just it's not a word that I can really relate to. So that's my question. Don't be stingy. Yeah, but I mean, is that work? Yes. Well, it's my experience of my needing to or wanting to arrive at an empty heart. My wanting to find myself without the aversion or clinging. My need to get to wholeheartedness. And it's funny,

[42:57]

wholehearted and an empty heart may be the same thing. But it is work. Because I, I'm sorry. What's the work? I have to sit still for unblessedness. Because, you know, I have to, I have to touch that part that's, that's hurting, or that part that's resentful. That part that says, well, what about me? No, it's also, I'm a preacher of Jungian analysis. So it goes, but it goes, it goes to ancient, twisted family karma. And I have to, I have to allow that and I have to feel the, the hurt and get underneath the anger and I have to allow myself to do that. And set aside the chatter on top. But not with denying it,

[44:07]

but just seeing it for what it is. And then what's underneath this, what's underneath this, and it's usually some kind of hurt. But I don't want to feel it. So that's, it is work. For me, it is. And it's work that I do with, with joy and with a lot more ease now than I did then. It does get easier. But I still think of that, you know, don't be stingy, do it. And it's stingy with your own effort. So it's something like that. But it's a lot for me, as you know, it's a lot of it's body, you know, it's not so much about the story, but the body. But it does feel like work, but it isn't work in order to get something. Right? So that's, that's the, I think that's

[45:09]

the difference. It's not in order to win it. So it's not a grasping. It doesn't work to insist on, on succeeding. And I haven't always succeeded. Sometimes it's taken a long time. I mean, that only took a couple of days. It was only a five days. I understand what you're saying. And it's clear to me. It's not the word I would use, but it is clear to me. Okay. If you come up with another one. Mary, somebody asks in the chat, when you are meditating, and you don't worry about having monkey mind, how do you know you're not just being lazy? Oh, I think lazy. Lazy pursues the thoughts. Lazy gets on. I mean, I like to say don't get on the train of thought,

[46:13]

or Suzuki Roshi said, you know, don't invite them in for tea. So lazy is just sitting there thinking. I'm not talking about sitting there thinking. I'm talking about sitting there and letting, letting thoughts be thoughts, just like let the deer come to the pool. Let the thoughts be thoughts. They have their own life. Don't, don't get entangled with them. Don't get pulled around by this. Sojin used to say, especially about you talking about emotions, but anyway. I don't know who asked this. I invite Ben to unmute yourself and ask a question. Hi, Mary, thank you so much for your talk. Thank you. Can I, I don't mean to be rude to you, Ben, but I would appreciate it if people didn't keep saying thank you for your talk. Because I mean, it did sound very much to me like you

[47:19]

meant it and that's fine. But sometimes I think people just sound like they're being polite. And it's one of my many pet peeves. Okay. All right. You just, Alan went too fast. And so I, I didn't get a chance to say. No, I understand. Okay. Thank you. So my question for you earlier in your talk, you talked about how Sojin helped you. You found Sojin helpful as you were practicing with the decline of your parents and then the loss of them. I don't know if you have anything more to say or share about that, in what way Sojin was helpful, in what way your practice unfolded during that. And if you prefer not to say anything, that's okay too. Oh, I'm happy to talk about it. I mean, it's 89 is a long time ago. And I have to tell you that it's, well, he gave me,

[48:23]

he gave me the koan, Case 55 of the Blue Cliff Record, which is famous. It's the alive or dead one with the teacher and the young monk go to visit a family that's just lost somebody. And there's a coffin in the main room and the family, they're there with the body. And the family's not in the room, I presume, anymore. The young monk hits the coffin and he says, teacher, tell me alive or dead, I have to know. And the teacher says, I won't say, I won't say. And the kid may do it again, I don't remember. But at any rate, then they're heading back toward, back to the monastery. And all of a sudden, the young monk stops and says, teacher, I have to know alive or dead. If you don't tell me, I'll hit you. And the teacher says,

[49:26]

hit me if you need to, and I won't say. And the kid does hit him. And the teacher says, you know, you've given me a bloody nose, and you better leave now, because if you go back with me to the monastery, you're going to be in deep, deep trouble. And so the young man goes off. And later he comes back and he waits. But that, I won't say, I won't say, is tremendously useful to me. And I had to chew on it. You know, he didn't explain it to me at all. He just said, you might want to take a look at case 55 of the Book of Records. He didn't allow me. And so I did. And I first thought, my first response was how mean and rude that teacher was, because he didn't say, I can't say, he was saying, I won't say. And what's that? And I just, I just kept reading

[50:33]

it because I kept saying to him, I figured he wouldn't give, Sojourn would not give it to me for no reason. So I just kept reading it over and over again. And at one point I was sitting under a hairdryer. I had hair. And I was reading it. I was kind of in the back of a salon and by myself. And I was reading it and, and I was just struck. But like, you know, like getting socked in the solar plexus, you know, not the thought wasn't initially wasn't a thought. It was just boom. And then I had the impulse, which I did not do being in a public place. I want to just throw the book. And the, after the insight, then the words came and it was something about, there's nothing to say, you just have to accept it. And there were other insights. I mean, I kept,

[51:41]

I kept working on it. And, and, and he and I talked about death and dying. And I'll tell you one experience that I had that I'm sure arose out of the work with the koan. And that was that I had, I was sitting Zazen and I had this image that death, classic dream, came into the zendo and tapped me on the shoulder, took me outside to the, that porch and pointed towards that grassy area in front of Alan's office. And, and what I saw was sort of shadowy outlines of adults falling down and then melting into the ground and where each adult fell, a little Chinese poster baby sprang up,

[52:43]

what they look like with those real pink cheeks and all those wonderful smiles on their faces. And I said to death, then why do we cry? And death said, because it's important. And I told Sojin about that. And I said, and death said, because it's important. And he said, what did death mean? And I hadn't even thought about it. I mean, I don't know that I could have said much because I understand it intuitively, but, but I hadn't thought about that. And, and he brought me up short and I don't think that I, I had an answer. I mean, now I could give you a whole Dharma talk, but that's, at any rate, that's how, I mean, he was tremendously helpful. As he kept, you know, he kept, he was supporting me to do the, forgive me, Alan, to do the homework around it.

[53:44]

Well, you know, if you want to talk about it sometime, that's, I don't want to take up forever. I'd love to talk about it sometime. Thank you, Mary. Well, I think that's about, I think that's it. Let's bring it to a close, shall we? We will go ahead and the, the Dawn will clunk and we'll say the vows together. Patrick's, Patrick's iPhone has a hand raised. Yes, it does. It does. And it disappeared. And then he came back. Yeah, I see that. We have an extra minute. We have an extra minute. Patrick, would you like to unmute yourself and ask a brief question? Okay. Next. Yes, go ahead.

[55:00]

Okay. I'm drifting in and out. Mary, this is a very quick question. You should, you might be able to address it in a word. I'm thinking of you earlier this morning, because I was in the Berkeley ball at the beginning of the pandemic. And I think we were just being mandated to wear masks when you went into the ball. I was senior hour. And you were one of the few other people in the store. And I was so happy to see you. You were out of place for me. Vallejo, now you're in Berkeley. And you were wearing a mask. I, for a moment, didn't recognize you. And then it snapped into place. And I stepped towards you. And you backed off. And in that moment, I realized, oh, we're in the middle of a pandemic. She's taking care of herself. Now,

[56:02]

that's what was going on in my mind, Mary. You were properly defending yourself. What was in your mind at that moment? And you might not remember at all. I mean, I don't remember and I believe you. Because I do that. And I don't think of it as defending myself so much as taking care of myself. And maybe taking care of the other person. Yeah. If people come, I'm now I'm completely vaccinated. But I'm still trying to be careful about stuff like this. So people come closer than six feet, then I tend to move back. So I don't I don't I didn't have, I don't know that I had much of anything in my mind except, oh, oh, this person's too close. And I don't know if I recognized you right away. I have Patrick, I don't know. The short answer is I don't know. It was nothing personal.

[57:05]

Oh, well, I took it personally for about 30 seconds. And then I realized, oh, we're in the middle of a pandemic. Thank you, Mary. Yeah. All right. Thank you. You're welcome.

[57:17]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ